Leapmotor C10 review: The People’s all-electric SUV

January 30, 2026 George East

With smart looks, plenty of standard kit, and an ultra-competitive price tag, the Leapmotor C10 can make a strong claim to being the People’s EV of 2026.

Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of Leapmotor. It’s a relatively new brand to the UK, despite having been manufacturing and selling EVs at home in China since 2019.

In 2023, a 51/49 joint venture between automotive giant Stellantis and Leapmotor enabled Leapmotor to sell its vehicles outside its home market starting the following year, including various countries across Europe.

The first Leapmotors to hit UK shores were the T03 city car and the object of today’s review – the Leapmotor C10, a value-focused, mid-sized SUV aimed firmly at the likes of the Tesla Model Y, the Skoda Enyaq, and the Stellantis-built Peugeot E-3008 and Vauxhall Grandland.

Priced at a wildly competitive £36,500 (and that’s without Leapmotor’s £3,750 ‘Leap Grant’ discount), the Leapmotor C10 is solidly built and comes loaded with standard equipment. Is it cheap for a reason, though?

Design, interior and technology

If you were to look up “D-segment Chinese SUV” in the Oxford English Dictionary, “Leapmotor C10” would be the definition. Probably.

With plenty of smooth surfaces and two huge air scoops on either side of the front bumper, the Leapmotor C10 is far from ugly. Maybe it was our test car’s standard-issue ‘Pearly White’ paint job, but it put me in mind of a second-gen Mitsubishi Outlander mixed with a dab of Sith Stormtrooper up front with those narrow LED headlights and their conjoining black bar.

Personally, I’d spec my Leapmotor C10 with the ‘Glazed Green’ paint. I saw one in Aldi’s car park the other day. It’s a genuinely lovely dark metallic, and it elevates the C10 from relative anonymity into “that’s a smart-looking car” territory. It’s not flashy at all, and I’m here for this unfussy aesthetic.

It’s worth noting that the Glazed Green also works better with the flush door handles and the standard-fit 20-inch alloys. Everything in the darker hue is just more cohesive, design-wise.

Step inside, and the C10 is what you’d expect. The driver gets a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster, and a 14.6-inch centrally mounted infotainment screen floats in the centre of a cleanly designed dashboard. It has very few buttons apart from those on either side of the satisfyingly chunky two-spoke steering wheel. Everything’s all very airy, with plenty of natural light flooding in through the sunroof.

It’s no secret that at EV Powered, we’ve encountered one or two issues with Chinese EV infotainment systems in the past, and I was expecting a horror show. After all, like Tesla, Leapmotor has placed all of the car’s functions in the screen. Unlike Tesla, the Chinese brands we’ve experienced (until now, at least) seem unable to make this approach work faultlessly.

While Leapmotor’s system doesn’t work anywhere near as intuitively as Tesla’s, it’s far from the worst system I’ve used. However, our C10 didn’t get Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Because I have no sense of direction, I resorted to the in-built navigation system, which was nowhere near as useful as Steve Jobs’ or Google’s finest, and I ended up taking the same route twice. This was promptly ditched in favour of resting my phone on the centre console and using Google Maps.

However, Leapmotor assures us that the Apple CarPlay/Android Auto sticking point is now fixed, and both apps can be used with third-party integration.

In the grand scheme of things, these are small niggles. The C10 is beautifully made, bettering some European rivals and offering plenty of space, including several cup holders and a huge central storage bin. There’s also a wireless mobile charger up front, with two USB-C ports placed awkwardly underneath.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with our car’s grey-finished cabin, and the same can be said for the quality of the OEKO-TEX (see, synthetic leather) and other materials used throughout. It was just visually monochrome.

Depending on the market, Glazed Green cars can be specced with a ‘Camel Brown’ interior trim. While this sounds unappetising and is the only car interior we’ve found so far to be named after an ungulate, it looks great. Genuinely. The sad part here is that this colour pairing isn’t available on UK cars.

Oh, and one more thing – much has been made of the C10’s intrusive ADAS system, with it even being described as “the most annoying car” by an industry colleague. Granted, I spent most of my time driving with it switched off because I value my sanity, but it wasn’t anywhere near as obnoxious as expected.

Perhaps Leapmotor has toned things down a notch with an over-the-air software update?

The C10 measures 4.7 metres long and offers 435 litres of boot space with the rear seats up, and 1,410 litres with them folded. This is pretty mediocre, considering the Enyaq has 585l and 1,710l worth of boot room.

Battery, motor and performance

Leapmotor keeps things simple with just one choice of battery and powertrain, a 69.9kWh unit paired with a 215bhp electric motor on the rear axle. Expecting class-leading levels of vehicle performance from a car designed with value in mind would be silly. Still, the C10 can manage the 0-62mph run in a respectable 7.9 seconds and soldier on to a top speed of 106mph.

Overall, the Leapmotor C10 is mid. It rides much nicer over the Peak District’s potholed roads than the E-3008, and the power delivery is plenty smooth. Not once did I complain about “oh, me back”.

In corners, there is quite a lot of body roll, and the steering wheel feels as if it’s connected to the tyres with a high-tension elastic band. Here, the C10 very much feels like a match for its price tag.

The Leapmotor’s 69.9kWh battery promises a 263-mile range. Again, without wanting to sound like a broken record, this is fine. On the up- and down-roads of rural Derbyshire, the consumption rate ranged from 2.9 to 3.2 miles per kilowatt hour – not too short of Leapmotor’s official figure of 3.4 miles/kWh.

A maximum charging speed of 84kWh is poor, however, and a 0% – 80% will take 45 minutes or more when using a fast charger. This is way below what’s expected for a brand-new car of this size.

For comparison, the Model Y has a maximum fast-charging rate of 250kW, while the Enyaq tops out at 175kW. The C10’s Stellantis stablemates, the E-3008 and the Grandland, each have a max charge rate of 160kW.

Price and specification

The Leapmotor C10 comes in one trim level. Unsurprisingly, it’s called Leapmotor C10, and this simple approach juxtaposes with the sometimes difficult-to-understand model hierarchies from more expensive competitors.

While the C10 may not be class-leading in terms of battery tech or its drive, it can go toe-to-toe with the very best when it comes to standard kit, as Leapmotor has packed it up to the hilt with toys.

As standard, you get six-way electronically adjustable heated and cooled front seats, 20-inch ‘Trident’ wheels, a heated steering wheel, and a 12-speaker hi-fi. It doesn’t stop there, either, because adaptive cruise control with intelligent lane assist, a 360-degree camera, and even a heat pump to pre-condition the car and eke out those vital extra miles during winter is included.

In fact, the only options are the additional four exterior colours, which will set you back £700 each.

The C10 can be opened, locked, and preconditioned using the Leapmotor app. If you don’t want to use the app, then you can get in and out of the car by tapping the driver’s wing mirror with a Tesla-style keycard.

And it’s here where the Leapmotor C10 makes sense, because it’s a handsome thing with loads of tech that does no more and no less than what you’d want. When you factor in Leapmotor’s £3,750 Leap Grant discount, then the C10 starts to make more and more sense if all you want is a competent family car that gets on with the job of doing just that.

Verdict

To wrap up this Leapmotor C10 review, it’s definitely a head-over-heart sort of car. I like that, though. It doesn’t pretend to be sporty or the best at anything, and that’s admirable.

On a more granular level, though, its appeal lies in the value it represents. At a time when finances are tighter than ever, it’s hard to knock the Leapmotor C10 – you’ll be genuinely hard-pressed to find a brand-new car that represents such bang for buck.

The People’s all-electric SUV? A very fair assessment.

Leapmotor C10